South Africa joins global artificial intelligence community
March 2018, News

Global non-profit organisation City.AI welcomes South Africa as a new member of its City.AI community. The NPO gathers artificial intelligence (AI) practitioners on a quarterly basis across 40+ cities to share challenges and lessons in applied AI. The first Cape Town City.AI event will take place on 27 March 2018 between 18:00- 21:00 at 22seven in Hout Street, Cape Town City Centre. The event tickets are priced in Euros and will cost approximately €2- €4 (between R30 and R50), however tickets can be bought at the door.

The Cape Town City.AI panel includes David Anderson, Lethabo Motswaledi, Neil du Toit and Weibke Toussaint, with moderation by Christopher Brian Currin and will focus on the implications and impact of AI.

“AI has certainly been around for years. It is all the rage at the moment because it’s time has finally come. From healthcare to financial services, AI is providing superhuman powers to people who need to make insightful decisions. Since we certainly cannot avoid the wave, discussions around AI are important as they assist us in demystifying it,” said Lethabo Motsoaledi, CEO of Motsoaledi & West.

“The boundary of our imagination is defined by what we know. AI already dominates our mobile digital lives. With the expansion of the Internet into the Internet of things, AI will soon dominate our physical lives too. To consider the expansive impact of AI on our collective human future requires us to put aside emotional reactions and consider the full extent to which human-machine collaboration will shape the evolution of intelligence,” said Wiebke Toussaint, CTO of SisiSasa, Masters student at the Centre for AI Research.

“Bringing City.AI to Cape Town is a step to creating a bridge to over 50 communities across 6 continents as well as the well-connected organisation, companies and educational institutions in each city’s ecosystem. South Africa taking a seat at the international table is hugely important. We are global players and this is one way to represent all that we do and are. The other is our attendance at the WorldSummitAI which we will be at in October in Amsterdam, Holland,” said Chantal Louw, Cape Town AI Ambassador.

“AI is becoming integral to many aspects of our lives, both in obvious and subtle ways. It has the potential to further humanity by solving beautifully complex problems that cannot be ignored, and menial tasks that should be forgotten. To realise its potential, it is paramount we have diverse, informed, and insightful discussions that not only reflect on the current state, but ultimately define our future,” said Christopher Brian Currin, PhD Computational Neuroscience candidate at UCT, AI mentor at Udacity, and Founder of the Cape Town Intelligent Systems Meetup and Cape Town AI Ambassador.

To purchase your ticket online, visit https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cape-town-ai-1-ai-implications-impact-tickets-41416575091.

For more information on Cape Town City.AI, visit https://capetown.city.ai/